The communicating time will be here soon. I have started this letter
early to be sure it will be ready. This is the first time I have felt
safe when communicating with you. Our enemies at home can solve such
extraordinarily complex ciphers that I have always been uneasy before.
They cannot possibly solve an entirely new language like this one; a
language based on an utterly different theory from our own; with new
symbols; and even set down with a different writing instrument. Our
long periods of study together have brought their reward. Your
Excellency, I appreciate the rare privilege of knowing a language that
only one other person at home knows, and that one person, yourself.
I am having many dangers and horrors in America. As we both realized,
it is impossible to carry out my mission without lots of their money.
I could not even begin my work, nor buy the expensive equipment needed
for my experiments without finding a way to make money.
In only a few weeks I discovered the quickest and easiest way to do it
was to become an entertainer. The people here like to be shocked and
astonished. Naturally I am well equipped to do both. I was an
immediate sensation. I got into what New Yorkers call "The Big Time."
Each night at 8:30 I went to a theatre in a place called Times Square
and put on my act. Thousands of people paid to see me. I was very well
paid. There is a newspaper here called "Variety." It carried an
article about me. The headline said: STRONG MAN TERRIF WOW SOCKEROO
100G 3D. The numbers at the end mean the theatre took in $100,000
during my third week. After the article appeared every seat was sold
weeks in advance.
You will be amused, Excellency, when you hear what I did in this show.
I came out on the stage practically nude except for an abbreviated
leopard skin. I walked over to a pile of iron rods. They were
half-inch concrete reinforcing bars about six feet long. I picked one
out and dropped it on the floor. It made a terrible crash. This was to
prove to the audience that it was real. Then I wrapped it around my
neck and tied it in a regular four-in-hand necktie knot. It was a
little hard to get the ends to come out even. I had to pull and haul
to arrange them just right. This caused tremendous laughter. They knew
no one could do this with an iron reinforcing bar. They were sure it
was a trick.
I chose the man in the audience who was laughing the loudest and asked
him to come up on the stage. With a little persuasion he did so. I
selected another iron bar and wrapped it around his neck. Then I tied
it in a four-in-hand knot and adjusted the ends until they were
perfect. I asked him to take the necktie off. He grabbed it with both
hands and tried. His face turned purple with effort, but of course he
could not even budge it. Everyone laughed loudly. Finally twenty men
from the audience volunteered to help. They all started pulling and
hauling. They couldn't get the iron necktie off. Then the audience
became silent. They looked at each other uneasily. There were
frightened whispers.
* * * * *
That was the time to break the tension. I would spit on the floor. As
my saliva hit the stage it burst into flames and a smell of perfume
drifted through the theatre. It was my turn to look surprised and
scared. Everyone howled with laughter, and the tension was broken for
all but the man with the iron necktie who remained forlorn and
miserable. Finally I removed his necktie and let it drop to the floor.
It made a tremendous crash. Everyone was impressed all over again.
Next I grasped a horizontal bar and chinned myself fifty times with
one hand. Again everyone became silent. They all knew no one has ever
done that before. In many ways they are like us. For example, when
they get scared their body heat rises like ours. As the heat came up
to me from the audience I could feel the change in my sensors. It made
my chin warm. I found that when my chin got warm it was time to break
the tension. I did it by demonstrating magic tricks.
You will smile, Excellency, when you hear what they call magic here. I
was tightly blind-folded. Some people came up on the stage, and I
announced exactly how many there were. I pointed to exactly where each
one was standing, and indicated which were males and which were
females. This made a most tremendous impression. I could hear gasps in
the audience. I was told that the people rubbed their eyes as if they
could not believe what they were seeing. You will understand,
Excellency, that I accomplished this by turning on the male principle.
The women here are so exquisitely receptive to it that when it is on
their excitement causes changes in their body heat. It was simple for
me to sense those fluctuations in temperature and to know which of the
people before me were female.
Next I put a piece of paper on a metal rack across the stage. I
concentrated heat waves on it from my cupped hand. The paper burst
into flames. As they say here on the street they call Broadway, that
"brought down the house." They clapped and whistled and made me do it
again and again. Luckily they conceived of it only as a wonderful
trick.
I ended the act by choosing a very unusual looking man from the
audience. He came up on stage and we went behind a screen together.
When we reappeared a few seconds later the audience screamed because I
had twisted my face around to look exactly like his. Believe me, the
reaction was terrific. Slowly I let my face slip back to "normal." If
they realized there is no normal and that I could leave my face that
way permanently, that would have been too much of a shock. They would
have become silent and terrified and suspicious. I might have been in
danger.
I had to calculate carefully how much these people could take without
realizing there was something alarmingly different about me. I
learned my lesson one night. I turned on the male principle too
strongly and some of the women in the audience became very agitated.
Everyone was embarrassed. After the show the theatre manager came to
my dressing room and asked me to have a drink with him at a little bar
across the street.
When we sat down he stared at me in a queer manner. "Just exactly what
happened tonight?" he demanded.
I looked surprised. "Weren't you satisfied with the act?" I asked.
"The audience seemed to like me."
"They liked you too much."
I laughed. "You mean those silly females who tried to drag me off the
stage?"
He narrowed his eyes and thrust his face close to mine. "If I hadn't
had the best-trained ushers in New York there'd have been a panic and
a riot in there. How come?"